Tops assists customers with nutritional scoring system

Tops Friendly Markets last week launched the NuVal Nutritional Scoring System in all of its locations.

The NuVal scoring system helps customers make informed nutritional choices by giving foods on Tops’ shelves a rating from 1 to 100 — the higher the number, the better the nutrition.

Scores are posted on Tops’ shelves and signs throughout the store, making it easy for customers to compare the overall nutrition of the foods they buy at a glance.

Frank Curci, Tops’ president and chief executive officer, said that as the first retailer in Western New York to offer NuVal Scores, Tops is committed to providing access to resources in order to help consumers make informed nutritional choices.

“We’re always looking for ways to help our customers navigate through the wide variety of products we offer,” he said.

NuVal is currently in use in more than 1,000 supermarkets in 23 states.

Dr. David L. Katz, chief science officer for NuVal, is one of the system’s principal inventors and an authority on nutrition, weight control and the prevention of chronic disease.

“The NuVal Nutritional Scoring System turns a lot of nutrition details into a single number,” Katz said. “It is a ‘GPS’ for nutrition, leading effortlessly to more nutritious foods on the supermarket shelf. With this easy-to-use, objective, scientifically robust system, a shopper and family can improve their diet and health one well-informed choice at a time.”

Tops’ customers can look for scores with the NuVal system’s trademark blue hexagons on the shelf tags of more than 18,000 food items throughout the store.

The scores are calculated for a wide variety of categories, including meat, seafood, poultry, salty snacks, milk, yogurt, vegetables, cereal, bread, cookies, soft drinks and crackers, among others. The system will guide consumers within food categories with no influence from food manufacturers.

For more information about Tops Markets or Nuval, visit the company’s website at www.topsmarkets.com.